[TriLUG] Can open source solutions be viable companies?

[John Franklin]

On Monday, July 1, 2002, at 03:08 PM, Scott Chilcote wrote:
> Give away the product and sell consulting?  Sell the documentation? 
> Sell boxed product but let anyone download it?  Sell 24-hour support? 
> Or even, sell a bare-bones version and cost-extra upgrades (but that's 
> stepping outside the lines).  Just try floating any of these concepts 
> past a purely profit-motivated management team that doesn't care what 
> kind of widget it's selling as long as the numbers look good.

I find it strange that you - a geek/techie - are asked to present 
(bulletproof) business cases to management.  Asking you to do so is 
either foolish on their part or they're setting you up for a fall.  
After all, you would *never* ask them to recommend a server, nor to come 
up with a security model for a distributed application, nor to even 
install a simple 100Base-T switch.  Do they really believe that geeks 
have such expertise in profit/loss forcasts, the current momentum of the 
market, the latest polling numbers and a critical understanding of the 
companies direct and indirect competition that the geeks are the go-to 
guys for business plans?  Don't they have *teams* of marketing gurus, 
MBAs and pollsters to do that for them?

Stick to the tech stuff.  When they ask you such things tell them, "If 
this is all you have, how do you think it should be marketed?"

Ok.  Rant over.

jf
--
John Franklin
franklin at elfie.org
ICBM: 35°43'56"N 78°53'27"W